ChessCube, the fast-growing online chess community and live chess platform, in association with Chess South Africa (CHESSA), is proud to announce a world first: participants in Australia will compete in the ChessCube SA Open 2009 by logging in to ChessCube and playing scheduled matches online.

ChessCube is the sponsor of the SA Open 2009, hosted by Western Province Chess Association under the auspices of CHESSA. While ChessCube is pleased to continue its sponsorship of this event, this year marks a world-first occasion. Players in another location, in fact another continent, will compete in the SA Open 2009 using the Internet.

As well as players and teams from southern Africa, four players in Australia will participate online using the ChessCube server. The four players, who will be playing from Melbourne Australia, are GM Gawain Jones (GBR – ELO 2550), IM Puchen Wang (NZL – ELO 2453), IM Mirko Rujevic (AUS – ELO 2282) and IM Leonid Sandler (AUS – ELO 2332) on standby. The arbiter in Melbourne is IA Gary Bekker (AUS).

Each Australian player will use a computer to connect to ChessCube and play their game, and will be supervised by the arbiter on that side. Similarly the players paired against them in Cape Town will play their games online using a computer, and will be supervised by an arbiter on this side. The remote players are in contention for all prize money and titles – similar to local players. FIDE have also agreed to officially rate the games played over the Internet.

The SA Open 2009 Tournament will be held at Wynberg Boys High School in Cape Town from 3 to 11 July. The pairings for round 1 will be published on 3 July, with the first games taking place from 18:30 on Friday 3 July. The full schedule will be available online at www.saopen2009.com.